Published 4:00 am, Thursday, March 4, 2004

Photo: John Storey

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Jane Huber smells a flower along the trail. Jane Huber combines is an e-outdoors gal. She began as an ardent hiker sharing her outings via a tidy, detailed Blog (Web diary) but has managed to parlay that into a new trail guide book and a career as a published writer. We'll take a hike with Jane along one of her little discovery sites (Coal Mine Ridge in Portola Valley).
Event on 2/27/04 in Portola Valley.
John Storey/The Chronicle less

Jane Huber smells a flower along the trail. Jane Huber combines is an e-outdoors gal. She began as an ardent hiker sharing her outings via a tidy, detailed Blog (Web diary) but has managed to parlay that into a ... more

I was reminded of the notion of sauntering, as well as the overall tenor of Muir's philosophy, while following Jane Huber up a stretch of the Toyon Trail in Portola Valley's Coal Mine Ridge preserve (off Alpine Road, south of Woodside).

Huber, 38, founded the Web site, Bay Area Hiker (www.bahiker.com). Not coincidentally, she recently published a guide book of top picks, "60 Hikes within 60 Miles -- San Francisco," with Menasha Ridge Press.

As Huber made her way up the Toyon Trail, she paused to admire both near and distant views, and loitered near early blooms of woodland wildflowers.

"February is red-white-and-blue month," Huber said, indicating these dots of patriotic color in the plant mosaic on the forested hillside. "Indian warriors, milkmaids and hound's tongue."

Often, as she walked, she reached out to caress leaves as if shaking hands with old friends.

She stopped to savor spicy scents of yerba buena, coyote mint and pitcher sage. An overlook where a distant ridge line could be glimpsed, a vantage point for contemplating the thunder of a rain-swollen creek, a glade where she could rest in the shade of a huge grandmother oak, all of these were given their due by an unhurried Huber.

"Walking in nature clears my head. It makes me feel much happier," Huber says. "Simple things, like the change of the seasons, put a smile on my face. I've tried to do walking meditations in the city, like on the Grace Cathedral labyrinth, but it's really not the same. I have to be out on a trail to relax, to feel peaceful. That's what gives me joy."

As a girl growing up in rural New Jersey, Huber's main outdoor recreation consisted of riding her bike for hours, voyaging between small country stores. Then, after earning a degree in public relations, she went for the big time, diving into the heady realm of New York publishing.

"Got there just in time for the crash," Huber wryly relates. Laid off from Doubleday, she came to San Francisco to visit college pals, and was taken on a hike to Mount Tamalpais' Steep Ravine trail

"Wildflowers bloomed everywhere," Huber says. "It was all so completely beautiful, I fell in love."

The next major scene in this tale shows Huber married to a computer expert she met in the Bay Area, managing Farley's Coffeehouse on Potrero Hill, and being coaxed by her new husband and friends to post notes about her hiking passion online.

"Margaritas may have been involved" in provoking her acquiescence, says Huber.

Five years after its launch, the Bay Area Hiker site boasts details on 230 jaunts to known landmarks, hidden nooks and far-flung corners of the region. Meticulously conceived and organized, the site provides a useful free service to visitors. (Huber recorded 181,000 hits on her peak day. However, a third of that amount is the site's daily average.)

Hike descriptions and directions are illuminated by Huber's digital photos and locator maps. There are abundant links for additional research, as well as collections of destinations that include camping, and include or exclude bikes, horses and dogs -- options to suit any site visitor's preference.

Her site morphed into a guidebook after Huber spotted a Menasha Ridge posting asking for Bay Area applicants interested in rounding out its "60 Hikes" series in this area.

"They wanted a writing sample," Huber says. "Rather cheekily, I just sent them my URL. To my surprise, they responded. They said they wanted me to do the book."

The upside of this development is that a new horizon has been revealed to this self-taught naturalist and writer. Huber now envisions a fresh career, crafting outdoor guidebooks that offer her own unique take on this well-worn enterprise -- tying topics to seasonal shifts and opportunities. What are the best things for Bay residents to do in summer? In spring?

Huber confesses she feels a bit unnerved at the notion of trading her much-beloved contemplative solitude on trails for all the public talks and guided walks that must accompany a successful career in guidebook production.

Yet, there seems to be room in this world -- as well as on the Web and bookshelves -- for a guide who does not relentlessly bag peaks or gallop for ultra-mileage. Someone who knows how to stop and smell the wild mint. A pilgrim who can wring the utmost pleasure from every yard of progress in the woods. In short, one who grasps the value of a good saunter.

"I began by wanting to know everything about wild plants," Huber says. "I've enjoyed a lot of help from a good friend in the California Native Plant Society, Tom Cochrane. This year, I'm absolutely obsessed with learning about butterflies. Next, I want to find out more about birds. Then, fungus."

We emerged at the Toyon trailhead. At this point, most hikers look ahead to the parking lot, check to see if their cars are OK, start mulling upon the mundane tasks they must engage in next. Huber was still studying the earth. She indicated a half-buried brown bulb, split by a sturdy green spike.

"Oh, look!" she exclaimed. "A buckeye is born."

Bay Area trail information

Jane Huber's new trail book, "60 Hikes within 60 Miles -- San Francisco, " is available for $15.95 at bookstores. Publisher is Menasha Ridge Press, (205) 322-0439 or www.menasharidge.com. Huber's Web site is: www.bahiker.com. She will present a free talk and slide show, "Waterfalls, wildflowers, butterflies and maple leaves -- the Bay Area's best seasonal hikes," at 7 p. m., April 6, at the REI store in Concord; at 7 p.m., April 7, at the REI in Corte Madera; at 7:30 p.m., April 20, at the Easy Going Travel Shop and Bookstore in Berkeley; at 7 p.m. May 6, at the Sports Basement in San Francisco's Presidio; 7 p.m., May 11, at the REI in Fremont. An exhibit of her trail photos will hang, May 1-31, at Farley's Coffeehouse, 1315 18th St. (between Texas and Missouri streets) in San Francisco.

Note: John Muir's theory of the origin of the term "saunter" is as follows. "When the pilgrims were going from England to the Holy Land, the French would ask them, 'Where are you going?' They did not speak French very well, but they would say, 'Sante Terre' (holy land). That is where we get our word 'saunter,' and you should saunter through the Sierra, because this is holy land, if there ever was one." Such a derivation is conceivable, but apocryphal. A modern, unabridged Webster's dictionary claims the true derivation is from an old Middle English verb, "santren," meaning to muse or brood.